


Children Must Be Accompanied By a Responsible Adult

by Medie



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Character Death Fix, Community: fandom_stocking, F/F, Femslash, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-07
Updated: 2013-01-07
Packaged: 2017-11-24 00:44:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 885
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/628354
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Medie/pseuds/Medie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"It's not a font," Buffy corrects, prim. "It's an <em>effect</em>...or something. Oh god, how am I supposed to shape young minds if I don't know if italics are a font or not?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Children Must Be Accompanied By a Responsible Adult

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TigerLily](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TigerLily/gifts).



Somewhere around breakfast, Buffy remembers.

Okay, technically it's not like she actually _forgot_ , but Tara goes to fill up her travel mug, making noises about being late and picking up the mail and she _remembers_. Like, punch to the gut, three vamps closing in kind of remembers. 

"Oh my god, it's my first day of school! _Again_! It's my first day of school again!" She covers her eyes with her hand (mostly so she won't see Tara trying very hard not to laugh at her girlfriend's, uh, Buffy-ness) and panics maybe a little bit. 

Okay, no, she panics a lot. Like a _lot_ , but she was supposed to be done with this by now. Actually, she was supposed to be a lot of things by now. She just doesn't like to think about most of them. 

Morose, she peeks between her fingers to ask, "Is it okay to shamelessly abuse italics if, you know, they're only in your head?"

"Probably not," Tara says, giving the idea some thought, "But it's a little better than outside your head. People will look at you funny if you start molesting fonts." 

"It's not a font," Buffy corrects, prim. "It's an _effect_...or something. Oh god, how am I supposed to shape young minds if I don't know if italics are a font or not?"

"Avoid teaching English grammar and you'll be fine," Tara puts down her mug, smiling as she reaches out. "C'mere." 

"I'm being an idiot," Buffy mutters, letting herself be pulled into a hug, "I know." 

"No, you're not," Tara says, winning herself the title of 'best girlfriend _ever_ ' for like the hundredth time. "You're allowed to freak out. It's one thing to start a new job when it's just a bunch of staff, but this is different."

"This is being outnumbered by hundreds." Buffy frowns. "And that's not even counting the possible undead that might be lurking beneath the building."

"You'll be patrolling," Tara says, "And so will I. I've laid down every kind of protection spell I can think of. Xander swears nothing even remotely hinky made it into the building plans and we did go over every _bit_ of the construction--"

"But it's Sunnydale High and it tried to eat us," Buffy finishes. "I'm freaking out for a good reason."

"Yep," Tara kisses her. "You're the slayer. You're supposed to be thinking about this." 

"I'm not supposed to be freaking out like this," Buffy says, sighing. "I don't think Slayers are supposed to be this neurotic. I don't think anyone is supposed to be this neurotic."  
She shakes her head and makes herself let go of Tara. They both have to get to work and she has to go actually meet the principal (who is worrying her with his extreme avoidance to staff meetings) and pay bills and do actual adult things.

Ah.

She winces and looks at the smiling Tara. "So, um, when were you going to point out I was having some kind of existential crisis about growing up?"

"I wasn't," Tara says, impish. "You process these things better if no one hits you over the head with them."

"Uh, no I don't," Buffy protests. "I frequently require head-hitting. Ask Giles! There was an embarrassing amount of head trauma in the first year."

"If it's his head, it doesn't count, Buffy." Tara drops a kiss onto her nose and turns around. "So, you want coffee?"

"Oh god, yes," Buffy says, all but pouncing. "Lots of it. Lots and lots--and I may have already had too much, but whatever. The way things are going, I'm probably going to have to kill Lucifer before noon and I'll need the extra caffeine." 

"Okay, but if your head explodes, I'm not cleaning it up," Tara gets Buffy's mug down from the cupboard and Buffy considers having a little freakout about that too. She has a _mug_. Like, really. She has a mug, a side of the bed, her own toothbrush and a favorite towel and this is their house. 

She's officially a grownup. 

Well, if you ignore the part where she kills vampires and demons in her spare time. 

"I never thought that I'd get here," she realizes, leaning against the kitchen counter. "I was supposed to be dead by now." Most Slayers didn't make it past eighteen. She's lived with that particular truth in her head for years; a little clock in the back of her head, silently counting down the minutes. "I never _tried_ to get here." School had sort of been about cover, studying more about helping Tara than preparing for her own stuff, and graduating hadn't been a consideration until she'd gone and done it.

Twice. 

And now she's supposed to make something of her life. She's supposed to be somebody and she's supposed to show a bunch of kids how to do it too.

Buffy takes the coffee Tara holds out to her. "How do I teach kids to prepare for the future when I never did?"

Tara shrugs. "Maybe by showing them what they should really be worried about? If it wasn't for you, most of our graduating class wouldn't have survived high school."

"Play to your strengths, huh?" Buffy muses. "I can do that." 

Vampire Slaying 101 with a Demonology Elective.

She likes the sound of that.


End file.
